Patrick, Murray at wheel of Dem. patronage wagon

If Gov. Deval Patrick really wants to find out who hired Sheila Burgess, he has two options.

He can look in the mirror. Or he can step into the office next door.

There he will find Lt. Gov. Tim Murray, his co-patronage czar, who with the governor's assent, most likely did the hiring.

It is nothing less than an insult for Patrick and Murray to pretend that they have no idea how the unqualified Burgess, a veteran Democratic Party campaigner and fundraiser, was hired as director of state Division of Highway Safety.

These political patronage jobs like Burgess' do not go to strangers who walk in off the street.

No, these jobs go to political people recommended by political people who are hired by political people. It's called patronage.

And when it comes to hiring a campaign person for a cushy $87,000 a year state job, complete with bennies, you can rest assured that the hiring is not done by HR. It is done by the governor, or the lieutenant governor, or both. That is the way the system works, despite what they say.

And while Patrick may piously deny the existence of patronage, or claim he knows nothing about it, his administration is up to its eyeballs in handing out political patronage jobs.

Not that there is anything wrong with it, as Seinfeld would say. It is only "wrong" when you get caught appointing people who are not qualified, like Burgess.

Remember how Patrick was going to change the culture on Beacon Hill? He changed it all right.

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He changed it by adopting it, which is why he hired Burgess to oversee driver safety. Her driving record is so bad she could be sitting in for the lieutenant governor.

Burgess, 48, is, of course, the political operative hired by Patrick in 2007 as director of highway safety, even though her main qualification appears to have been in crashing cars. The Burgess story was initially broken by Sean P. Murphy of The Boston Globe.

The six-member highway safety agency, which distributes millions annually in grants to police departments, is charged with warning the public of the dangers of drunken driving, texting while driving, speeding, failure to wear seat belts and so on.

No sooner did the story break about Burgess' long record of driving accidents and infractions, than nobody could quite remember who hired her, but that Patrick would get to the bottom of the mystery. Anyway, he said, she should not have been hired for that specific job.

"It was a screwup," Patrick said, even though Burgess held the job for five years. She was so good at what she did, he said, that he would find another job for her.

How good was she? Burgess had 34 entries on her driving record dating back to 1982, according to the Globe. Her record includes seven accidents, four speeding violations, two failures to stop for a police officer, one driving without a registration or license in her possession, one driving without a seat belt on and one failure to stay in her lane. She is currently on paid medical leave following an Aug. 24 crash in which she drove her state vehicle off the road and crashed into a boulder at the Blue Hills Reservation in Milton.

With a record like that, who better than to warn the public about the hazards of driving than someone who has already wreaked havoc on the highways?

But the real story of her hiring goes to the heart of Democratic Party patronage politics in Massachusetts. Burgess was recommended for the job to Patrick and Murray by rubber stamp, good government liberal U.S. Rep. James McGovern, who has a Worcester connection with Murray.

As a paid political consultant and fundraiser, Burgess worked for McGovern, Murray, U.S. Sen. John Kerry, gubernatorial candidate Shannon O'Brien, the late U.S Rep. Joe Moakley, as well as others.

So you can see how qualified she was to deal with highway safety, or political campaigns. Which is why Patrick said he would have another soft state job for her when she got back to work. Then, suddenly, on the eve of Thanksgiving, he fired her.

But why would Patrick rehire and then fire someone he had nothing to do with hiring in the first place?

It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Perhaps the mirror will tell him. Or he can ask the guy sitting next to him.

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